March Mission Trip
-- Jan Druckenmiller, March 2006
On March 9, 2006, a group of 13 people headed to the Philippines to spend ten days at the Rehoboth Children's Home. The team ranged in age from 8 years old to 70+. Due to an unavailability of seats on the airplane, part of the team left from Billings and part of the team left from Bozeman. They rendezvoused in Salt Lake City and flew together for the remainder of the trip. Upon arriving at the airport in Manila, the team piled into two vans and headed up the mountain to the lush, tropical area where the Rehoboth Children's Home is located. A warm welcome was given to the team by the staff of the Rehoboth Children's Home and members of Christ to the Philippines Church. The team was treated to traditional Filipino dancing in costumes and a performance by the children of the Rehoboth Early Learning Center. The team presented Ike, the pastor of Christ to the Philippines Church, with saddles and bridles for his horses which he uses to reach the back country to evangelize to the un-reached people groups in the mountains. An added bonus was a cowboy hat and boots. Pastor Ike is now a genuine Montana cowboy! Pastor Ike's first attempt at putting the bridle on his horse resulted in it being upside down with the bit across the top of the horse's head with its ears through the rings. Tim Heibert decided that some lessons were in order and showed Pastor Ike how to use this unfamiliar equipment from the states.
The playground structure that we had purchased in the U.S. and had shipped to the Philippines in January lay in cartons awaiting the work team's arrival. Part of the team went right to work digging post holes for the structure that were later filled with concrete. The children watched in eager anticipation while they played in the sand used to make the concrete. It was an exciting day when the playground structure was complete and the children were let loose to enjoy it. While the playground was being erected, other members of the team poured gravel and concrete into part of the French drain system around the Home to reslope it so that the water would drain into a different outlet. Ventilation fans were installed in the nurseries to provide a cooler environment for the babies, repairs were made to the water lines going into the Homes and some troubleshooting was done to separate the city water system from the water supply from the deep well. Some touch up painting was done inside the faciliites and a start was made on installing fire doors in a back room in each of the Homes to provide some egress.
Taking a work team on a mission trip such as this always results in so much more than construction, painting and fixing things. It's about relationships. Relationships formed between the staff and children and the work team as they, for a short time, become part of the daily pulse of the Home. Relationships formed with people in the community as the team ventures out beyond the walls of the orphanage. On one such occasion, Pastor Ike and his wife, Claris, who is the office manager at Rehoboth, took the team to view their newly purchased home which amounted to a loafing shed with a dirt floor and sheet metal roof held up by timbers infested with termites. Ike and Claris shared their excitement over their plans to renovate this structure to make it liveable. Money had been given to the team by people in Bozeman to purchase Bibles for the church. However, it turned out that the church already had an abundance of Bibles that had been donated from another source. In consulting with the donors of the money, the team was told to use it for another need that might be discovered during their trip. After touring Pastor Ike's future living quarters, the team met together during evening devotions and agreed to give the funds to Pastor Ike and Claris so that they could build a proper home for their family. This turned out to be a tremendous blessing to them and the team was also blessed to be a conduit for the funds that had been sacrificially given. A short time after the team returned home, they received pictures of cinder block walls up, a roof on and floors poured. No time had been wasted in getting started on this project!
At the end of the time at Rehoboth, Craig and several members of the team flew to Cebu to visit the Children's Shelter of Cebu, another orphanage that The Sacred Portion Children's Outreach has been involved with for the past seven years. The staff of CSC gave the team members the traditional tour of the city of Cebu that included visiting Magellan's cross and a Catholic cathedral and going into the squatter areas and grave yards which are home to the homeless.
They spent time playing with the children at the shelter and attending a "Twins" baseball game which is the chosen name for the CSC kids' team. The "Twins" played the "Dodgers", another local city team and won, maintaining their first place position in the league.
A work team goes out with a certain purpose and goals to be accomplished. But God often has a different agenda to be discovered during the course of the trip. God's goals usually have to do more with the opening of eyes to needs beyond comprehension and challenging people to respond.
Upon returning home, Randy Mead, work team member, stated, "The trip made a permanent impact on our hearts - my son, my wife and myself. It was such a blessing to see the great work being done for kids and the dedicated people who serve their needs. But it is also heart wrenching to know that so many millions of kids are still in desperate need. All of us have a call to contribute in different ways to share God's love with them."